The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
HOVEL
Definition of HOVEL
noun
An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English hovel, hovil, hovylle, diminutive of *hove, *hof (“structure, building, house”), from Old English hof (“an enclosure, court, dwelling, house”), from Proto-West Germanic *hof, from Proto-Germanic *hufą (“hill, farm”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewp- (“arch, bend, buckle”), equivalent to howf + -el. Compare Middle High German hobel (“cover, lid, covered wagon”). Cognate with Dutch hof (“garden, court”), German Hof (“yard, garden, court, palace”), Icelandic hof (“temple, hall”). Related to hove and hover.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
HOVEL in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 43 boards so far. 193 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 7, 28 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 100, 28 August 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
HOVEL starts with H and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read EHLOV - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start HOVEL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 7
Could you have found HOVEL?
OUTLIER is a daily word game. One grid, the same grid for everybody, and the words nobody else spots are the ones that pay. This word was on Day 7 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER